W, X, and the start of Y

W is for…we’re nearly there!

X is for…my brain hates me and insisted on completing all the cross stitching in a day. I managed it, but I wasn’t impressed with my brain. If it could cut that nonsense out, that’d be great.

Y is for…yearning to have this thing finished already!

Onto the rest of Y and a very long thing Z, then all the finishing (beads, names, date, framing!)

V is for…

…very nearly finished!

4 more letters to go!!!!!!

Aaaaaaaand a month later

Oh boy it’s been a while. But that’s ok. It’s ok for priorities to change, for ‘life’ to happen. My bipolar blew up (or I’m just become more aware of it). So, no guilt (they said…I’m trying, kay?). Instead, what has been happening?

The banket was finished and sent off to Sami, and she loves it.

Rather a lot has been done on the wedding sampler (oh yeah, and the wedding happened :D). Rather than show you each square, here is the whole thing so far:

Ok, that’s it almost so far. I’ve also done T. So now there’s only 6 more letters to go, then the name, date and beads. I’m a bit annoyed that after N I still had to keep going down to do T, rather than head over to the other side of the fabric, but oh well! Hardly a big problem!

And the blanket I’m doing at my friends place is nearly finished- here’s the start of it

There’s going to be a lot of sraps left over from this project. I’m thinking a scrappy hexagon blanket, but we’ll see. Other ideas gratefully accepted!

Umm, I think that’s all the big things!

long overdue update on the wedding sampler

Life is as crazy as ever, so have a post about a month after the last one (this is probably my life now, I’m too busy doing things to write about them. Oh well, I can survive with very sporadic posts 😛 )

I finished F…

procastinated for a while on G… (so much green!)

raced through H in about 3 days

and then did J in aout the same amount of time! (I was done earlier)

Onto K! This isn’t the only thing I’ve been doing, but I haven’t taken pictures of the other things so they will have to wait a bit longer!

Update on everything

So, I didn’t mean to be gone so long! Instead of my planned post about the delights of backstitch, let’s have an update on EVERYTHING. (And it will also remind me what I’ve got going!)

Wedding sampler:

B, D and E are finished, F is started nearly finished:

I’m working on a blanket. Its done in pieces, and then sewn together. I’ve finished all the squares (and half squares and quarter squares)

and done the first 7 rounds of the octagons (there are 16 of these). Of course the second 7 rounds will take longer because it’s getting bigger.

I’m not thinking about all the ends I have to weave in afterwards…

I finished a spinning thing! This is 187 meters of singles. I had to spin it as two spindle-fuls, and then do some nifty stuff to make it one length in the end. I’m very pleased with that 🙂

I’m doing more spinning, but I dont think that’s particularly interesting to photograph. At the moment I’m going to use the yarn to make a blanket, but I figure there’s a 75% chance I’ll change my mind more than once before I start it, so…

I decided I didn’t want to make the bird socks for the mother, so I’m now making them for me. Surprisingly, this ended my massive procrastination over the whole thing, so I’m working on these at the moment

Umm, what else is there?

Sami’s blanket has kinda ground to a halt because I’m using the hook for the other blanket (and the cross stitch needs to be finished first), but Im up to here with that:

I may take it to spinning with the hook and just plow on with it. (Again, I’m ignoring the ends on this thing…)

The elephant head will get frogged (if anyone can remember that far back…) so no picture of that.

My OLAS cardigan is in the corner staring at me because I’m not working on it…

And the breathe embroidary is still mostly being ignored… I’m too busy having fun with other things?

I think that’s everything important. Of course I have many socks on the

A is for (very outdated) anniversary

So, wayyyyyyyy back (before I actually went on medical leave, so early April…) I finished another square on the wedding ABC. And here it is in all it’s finished glory.

(In fact, this is so outdated that I’ve finished B and moved on to D, but let’s ignore that for now…)

FO Sunday- C is fore Cake!

(And some of the swears one utters while dealing with all the backstitching and heart confetti of this rectangle!)

If you’ll excuse me, I’d better get on with the A!

C is for…not finishing this project on time

So, I finally got around to picking up the Wedding ABC I started for a friend’s wedding in August (probably. It’s still being planned).

I currently have 6 (and a bit) letters filled in, which means I have 18 (and most of the 19th) still to do, along with the couple’s names and date of the wedding (when it’s been decided), along with all the beading (not too much) and framing (*nervous laughter*). At one square a week (yeah right!), that would take me to 29 June. That gives me a lead time of 5 weeks, plus then July to get it framed etc. I’m thinking that is unlikely in the best, especially given there are other things I also want to make at the same time. Ahh well. I will breathe (or at least try to remember to breahte!) and work on this, and finish it when it gets finished. My friend will understand 🙂

Umm, so yeah…

I was planning on starting up the monthly goals again, but since we’re so near the end of January, it isn’t really worth it. I will briefly mention my current projects though, so I can get into it next week when I talk about my February goals…

My main piece is the ‘breathe’ embroidery. I had hoped to have it done by the beginning of January, but hey ho…I’m now hoping to get it done by the end of January. Fingers crossed this happens…

My other piece with a definite time limit is the cross stitch wedding sampler.

Sometime next week I will work out how fast I need to work on this to have it done by the end of June (I think the wedding is happening in August and it will need framing as well).

Finally, my current big knitting project is still cockatoo brae. I’ve fixed the neckline, and now am procrastinating over picking up the stitches for the button-band, so I will try to make a swatch to see how many stitches I need to pick up. That probably won’t happen until February, but we shall see…

Ok, what happened to August??? (August/September goals…)

Umm, August happened already, what is going on??? Let’s have a look at what was supposed to happen…

1. Finish Mildred’s socks. This is getting stupid now. They are also the last things (on the needles) to give other people, so double incentive to finish them!
   Umm, nope. September maybe???
2. Sew Kita’s pillowcase together. The procrastination is wildly strong on this one…:/
   Yes!!!!!! I finally did the thing! And it can now be posted as their new place
3. Work out what on Earth is going on with my cockatoo brae. If it is my gauge I’m going to be annoyed…
   Nope. The nope is strong on this one…I have bigger fish to fry right now. This will probably get looked at after Christmas at the rate of things at the moment…
4. Work out which socks have the most left to do that are mindless for all the train rides (4, or 5 if you count connections as separate trains) (If I finish the Mildred socks this is totally a good enough excuse to start new socks…)
   Nope. I decided to do cross stitch Mill Hill kits, which is definitely a good thing. Now I just need to order some more…
5. Bonus: get to the yoke of cockatoo brae, depending on what is going on with it.
   Hahahahahaha nope. See above
6. Bonus: work out what everyone’s getting for Christmas, and if it’s crafting work out a plan of attack for them…
   Yes! So I now have revised plans for the rest of the year!

 

Ok, so we’re now 2/3 of the way through the year, and I’m throwing out my original plans for the year. Christmas somehow snuck up on me (as if it wasn’t the same time every year…). So, new goals:

1. Crochet this elephant for my aunt. This is the only Christmas present I’m making this year (unless I decide to make something for my brother-in-law. I have no idea on what to get him. Any suggestions???)
2. See how much of this wedding sampler I can get done. I’ve finished S, so I now have A-H,J-N, T-Z as well as the names, dates and beads. So 20 small sections, beads and backstitching. Arguably z should count as 2-4 sections, but let’s count it as one and plan on doing bits of it while technically working on other sections. 2 sections a month is probably the minimum to keep on track with this, but let’s aim for 3.
3. Finish Mildred’s socks. (This is starting to feel a bit silly. All I have left to do is one afterthought heel… I think I’m stuck on picking the stitches up for it, and the fact that the project is at work, and knitting club doesn’t meet during the summer…so that needs to come home to get done.)

 

 

So, September goals and a plan of attack:

1. Three sections of the wedding sampler. W, X and Y I suppose.
2. Bring home Mildred’s socks and pick up the stitches for the heel (baby steps…as soon as I do this the rest of it will just fall into place…)
3. Get gauge on the elephant??? IDK, I’m having a mental block on how to deal with the sampler and the elephant goals….halp???

Or should I do two bits for the wedding sampler, and two weeks on the elephant??? Advice please, peoples! Or do I just concentrate on the elephant and see if I can crochet it in a month??? (Actually, I really like that idea… Yeah, let’s go with that one)

Change of plan:

1. Finish Mildred’s socks. Just…just do it already.
2. Crochet all the bits of the elephant.
3. Order Christmas stocking mill hill kits (as in, the Mill Hill kits I think people would like), and make a start on them. There’s 5, and the seagull is one of them. This is one of thse spontaneous plans which is always more trouble than it’s worth, but always just works out for me so I never learn from them…